The present invention relates to shopping carts, and is particularly concerned with lumber or building materials carts which are designed to support wood panels, beams, and the like in transport from a building materials store to the purchaser's vehicle.
Lumber carts are typically of the order of four feet long and thirty inches wide, and consist of a rectangular frame base, a pair of outer side walls or supports along opposite sides of the cart, and a pair of inner side walls each spaced inwardly from one of the outer side walls to form a central channel for supporting plywood panels and the like in a generally upright orientation. Each of the side walls or supports is formed by an inverted U-shaped metal bar or tube having uprights secured to opposite ends of the base frame. The front and rear upright of each outer side wall is also secured to the respective front and rear upright of the adjacent inner side wall by a cross bar spaced above the base of the cart. The front and rear cross bars at each side of the cart form a support for beams or 2 by 4s placed over the beams, and also act to prevent users from positioning plywood panels, glass panels, or the like in the side channels of the cart, which could cause instability or tipping of the cart.
Up to now, lumber carts have not been stackable, so that they take up considerable amounts of storage space both in stores and in parking lots when not in use. This also adds to the expense in transporting such carts.